Coffee And Kate

Deb: The best part about doing a blog is undoubtedly the connections we make. Of course we do the blog to express ourselves, but it’s the connection with the people who follow our blog that gives it its life. Otherwise we are simply talking in a vacuum. So what happens when it goes one step farther and we find ourselves connecting on another level? We already experienced it in our Skype with Shalaka and yesterday we had Coffee and Kate! Live, and in person! Kate was technically, the very first follower of The Middle Ages and as she generously said yesterday, “I immediately followed you to encourage you. If people don’t get followed, they don’t keep it up.”  And why would they? Hell, I’ve been blogging from the age of ten. It was called a diary.

Kate has her own wonderful blog which is wonderful and personal and full of charm. Kate already felt like a friend these last two years. Just a friend we’d never met. But face to face is good for a friendship right? So we set out to meet and it was lovely, lovely.  I had no trepidation at all about meeting Kate. I knew it would be easy and it was. There was no fanfare, no awkward pauses. And you really know that someone is a true friend when within five minutes of meeting them, you are talking about vaginas. And the second way you know someone is a friend is when it just feels awful to say goodbye.

Come back soon Kate!

Barbara: Yes, Kate (aka Stubblejumpin’ Gal, etc etc) is a Saskatchewan native (a beautiful Canadian prairie province) and it turned out that she had business in town. She suggested we meet for coffee and luckily our schedules allowed us to do that! It was like a lovely breath of fresh air to meet this wonderful person in real life. I know people are very often not what you expect when you only know them from their online “personas”, but—and maybe it’s because Kate is a Prairie gal—I went to coffee expecting her to be exactly as she seemed on our blog and her own. I did entertain the possibility that she might not be, but that was more a vague question about my own perceptions and expectations. I wonder if any of you have had similar experiences of meeting people you’d only known from social media and what it was like when you saw them in real life? Because there was Kate, as if we’d been meeting for coffee every week for several years! And, like Deb said, there we were talking about our most private lives like we’d just been waiting for this chance. It’s another amazing example of the world in its most intimate smallness. Thanks, Kate!

Kate: Yesterday was the first time I've met "internet friends" in person, so I did wonder whether it was possible that we would have nothing to say to each other, awkward moments, or even be just plain disappointed if each other was not as expected.

But our meeting, from my very first glimpse of a smiling Deb in front of the bagel shoppe, felt so completely warm and natural, as if I was seeing long-lost friends. There was instant recognition and affection and I enjoyed every moment of our chat. It was all so easy! and of course was over too soon.

You are both lovely, lovely people and I feel absolutely blessed.

x's and o's,

Kate

Quipster Wannabe (or No Quipping Allowed)

Barbara: Summer is a good time to test out your banter skills. There are generally more parties, more get-togethers, more chances for leisurely encounters with people you hardly know or don’t know at all. When it comes to the basics of social intercourse, I’m usually pretty good. For those of our readers who cringe at the thought of any kind of exchange of idle conversation, here’s the trick that will get you through pretty much any social situation: ask questions about the other person. In my experience that breaks all but the hardest ice, and if you start the questioning, you don’t have to answer any yourself! But when it comes to witty retorts and lighthearted banter, I just want to let you know that you should watch me in action: it would dispel all of your fears forever. Yes, you too can suck at witty retorts and survive!

With so many living lessons from the Banter Jedi Masters (hello, Deb!), you’d think I could rock this whole arena of life, but I confess I am a Quipster wannabe. I routinely hear myself coming up with banter that verges on the inanely incomprehensible. Before I’ve even formed the thought behind the things I want to say, strange words or variations thereof stumble from my mouth.

Passing the same British couple every morning on the beach in Antigua, already having exchanged a few pleasantries over the days, now arriving at the Quipping Point:

Them: You were the dancing queen on the dance floor last night.

Me: Hey, mock me if you want, but I didn’t see you two out there lumming it up.

We share polite laughter as I walk on (shaking my head to myself: “Lumming it up???”)

At a party where, for a moment, a young child becomes the focus of attention amid general party banter.

Me: Are you going to play a song for us on your guitar?

Him: Yes. I’ve been practicing.

Me: You’re going to be like the next (everyone waits, including kid, this is gonna be good)… awesome …(what’s she gonna say?) like, jam … rocker … dude.

A quiet second of WTF before the kid grins and nods (even at 8 he understands he must rescue me from my social mire), while the adults around us politely chuckle.

Or there is the real conversational gaffe. Saying real words in a sensible order but making no intelligent sense. Chatting with a film director with whom I’ve just finished shooting, me so respectful of her work.

She: (in answer to my question) Yeah, I just finished working on a novel.

Me: That’s wonderful. Fiction or non-fiction?

She: Um, isn’t a novel always fiction?

Me: Mmfle-murf. (as I run off to quaff a glass of wine, never to idle banter with her again)

The truth is, here’s the good news: people don’t care! They smile and nod their heads in agreement, sometimes even laugh at the supposed punchline of my “joke”. If not for the lingering sound of my own words echoing in my ear I would possibly remain forever ignorant of my quip ineptitudes.

Sadly, I hear the echo. (“The horror, the horror.”)

Deb: It’s funny because we were joking that this weekend I was Shecky McGrath. Everything was a quip and that sort of became a joke in itself. I love the quip, I love wit and I am sure Barb that you do yourself a great disservice. But next time you throw out a lame one, just in case ... pretend you’re drunk. 

Deb and Barb Have A Three-Way

This week we’re going to start a new regular (maybe monthly) feature where we let one of our loyal reader-commenters and friends begin our blog conversation. As Rigel from Winter Light Blog inspired us with her pithy comment about digressions, we’ve asked her to pitch the first ball.

As always, the conversation will continue in the comment-section.

Deb And Barb Have A Three-Way With Rigel

Rigel: Deb, in your post the other day, you mentioned your booties purchase, and you said, "But I digress."

Please do! Yay for digressions and conversational tangents! Of course, I also realize that I will someday be banished to the Siberian gulag for writers who abuse parenthetical asides.

Conversational tangents just make the conversation rich and complex enough that it has its own trigonometry (my favorite subject in math)!

Digressions and tangents are conversational accessorizing. They are the earrings, necklaces, hair barrettes, and purses of conversation. Do you want your conversation to keep its hair out of its face with plain, black bobby pins or with a fabulous peacock feather fascinator?

I'd much rather interact with someone whose conversation is luxuriously draped, intricately embroidered sari silk than someone whose conversation is plain, cream muslin that hangs like a potato sack.

Photo by Rigel

Of course, there are times when conversation must wear its pantyhose, severe black suit, and plain pumps while slicking its hair back into a tight bun (without the cute hair chopsticks!). There are those situations when we must apply that most dreaded word: appropriate. Digressions and tangents would be floppy socks making us trip and fall (rather than cute booties) in cases such as the urgent, efficient patter of a trauma team, a stuffy corporate memo, or testifying on the witness stand!

But, in most circumstances, for me, the conversations that contain the most laughter, the most insight, and the most pleasure are the digressing and tangential ones that are accessorized like belly dancers with veils, bells, and bangles.

Barbara: Rigel, first off, I just love your analogies for “appropriate” conversation vs natural, “embroidered” conversation. As everyone saw in our video post on Wednesday, Deb and I are completely and thoroughly “belly dancer” conversationalists (even without the endless interruptions).

Don’t get me (us) wrong—there are many many days when we get LOADS written, but I don’t think a day goes by that isn’t peppered with a thousand different random tangents that trigger a thousand more, and so on and so on. In fact, “What were we saying?” is our constant go-to lament.

Of course, the comedy of errors really kicks in after “What were we saying?” That’s when we scramble desperately to tangent our way back to point A––because we’re absolutely CERTAIN that point A was of some really urgent, life-changing importance.

But, like you say, Rigel, it turns out that the glory and beauty of these rich discussions is that oodles of gold comes out of our tangents. Feelings not yet realized, experiences not yet shared, fears not yet examined. Sometimes––usually––it doesn’t matter at all that Point A got lost in the shuffle.

Deb: I agree with everything that both you girls say about this. I think tangents are necessary, but they can also hinder a forward motion when ... did I tell you we’re getting a new puppy tomorrow? Cannot wait. We went out to get the little pink leash and the little pink ... there was a gorgeous bulldog there that I wanted to steal he was so cute. My friends bulldog, Julie, used to dive in the pool at his house everytime one of them went off the diving board, but she couldn’t swim so she would just sink like a stone, stand there with her eyes open until someone rescued her ... I took swimming lessons a few years back to up my skills in the hopes that it would get me back in the pool and it did for one summer. Last summer, I went in twice and this summer, just my feet. I don’t know if it’s the pool or the prospect of seeing the sun reflected off of the cellu ... I have this weird tom-tom poundy thing in my left ear and it is really weird and I went online and so many people were talking about it and wondering what it was. My doctor said not to worry but is sending me to an ear, nose and ... throat thing is going around right now and I have to say that I have already fought off two colds since August with the Coldfx. But why? Why do I get so many colds? I am so healthy and I eat well and work out and take vitamins and still my nose starts to get stuffed and I can’t ... smells of Autumn are bliss with people’s fireplaces kicking in and the crisp air begging me to scarf down a caramel covered apple ... Honey Crisp apples?!? What the hell? Soooooooo good and so huge. It’s like an apple and a glass of apple juice in one ... I’ve never really been a juice person though ‘cause ... have I ever mentioned that I NEVER EVER EVER feel thirst? The only time was when I was in labour and it was as if all my thirsts saved up for that one 24-hour period. It was awful ... just like the thought of the boy going back to school. Awful. We have gotten used to him being up in his room since he got back from his summer job, having dinner with us and enjoying his company again and I am already stressing about him heading back in October ... the heavenly month in Ontario where everywhere you look is God’s canvas. I think God called it his colour phase.

Barbara: What were we saying?